Rapist slashed Peter Tobin for refusing to reveal bodies

Double rapist, Sean Moynihan, who slashed the face of murderer, Peter Tobin, in his cell in Saughton Prison, because Tobin had been “annoying” him, has been sentenced to 32 months.

At Edinburgh Sheriff Court today, Sheriff Nigel Ross told Moynihan: “This was a cowardly attack on a sleeping man, leaving a disfiguring scar down the whole side of his face”.

Thirty-one year old Moynihan, a prisoner in Glenochil, had pled guilty previously to severely injuring and permanently disfiguring 69-year old Tobin in his cell on July 1 this year with a razor blade fitted to a handle. Sheriff Ross had deferred sentence on being told that Moynihan was due to be sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow on another matter and he wished to see the outcome of that.

The Sheriff heard that Tobin was asleep in his cell when he woke to see Moynihan standing over him, slashing him on the face with something sharp. Tobin grabbed his arm and struggled with him and after Moynihan left the cell, Tobin rang the cell alarm. A prison officer saw Moynihan with blood on his right arm. He was found to have a razor with a handle in his pocket and he told the officer: “I slashed Tobin across the throat and face”.

When he was later interviewed and asked why he had carried out the attack, he replied: “I am never getting out. Tobin has been annoying me for months with his attitude towards his offences and his refusal to tell anyone where the rest of the victims’ bodies are”.

Tobin was treated at St John’s Hospital in Livingston where he was found to have a 20 centimetre laceration running down the right side of his face and onto his throat. He will be permanently scarred.

Defence solicitor, Charlie McCusker, told Sheriff Ross that Moynihan had not yet been sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow and was due to appear there tomorrow. He added that the defence disputed the findings of a report and were in the process of having their own report done. This, he said, might take some six weeks.

Sheriff Ross told Moynihan: “You have other matters to be dealt with in another court. I will deal with this today”.

He added: “This was an assault on a sleeping man in his cell in prison and a custodial sentence is inevitable. This assault is particularly serious because of the location, Prisoners are entitled to serve their sentences without being assaulted”.

Tobin is serving life sentences for the murders of 15-year old Vicky Hamilton from Falkirk in 1991. Her body was found in 2007 buried in the garden of a house in Margate and 23-year old Angelika Kluk, a Polish student, whom he buried under the floor of St Patrick’s RC Church in Glasgow in 2006.